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The world is the outcome of our inner qualities, our senses. Currently our five senses – vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch – have a narrow, limited range of perception. However, we have the ability to expand our senses so they will perceive without any limitations. The way to do this is to come out of the desire to receive and to exclusively consume, and instead learn to perceive the world as it exists outside of us, instead of perceiving it through our five senses. We will then perceive Infinity, the absolute reality, without any boundaries.

Of course, the question is: How do we come out of ourselves? We can understand what it means to expand the range of our senses, but how do we come out of ourselves? If the only thing in nature is the desire to receive pleasure, then it would seem impossible to come out of it.

Kabbalists say that this possibility does exist: It can be done by feeling what our neighbor feels. Just like we reveal the world through ourselves, we are able to connect with a friend who has the same spiritual goals, and to perceive the world through him, and then through another person, and another, and so on. Once we reveal the entire spiritual reality through other people, we will discover that it is, in fact, outside of us.

This is why the condition for perceiving spirituality is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In our world this sounds like an old, worn-out saying. But Kabbalists have a completely different condition in mind when they say this phrase. Loving your neighbor means feeling what is happening in him. It means connecting to his soul, his senses, and his perception to your own. Or, in other words, it is when you come out of yourself and begin to reveal whatever is outside of you, whatever is in him.

Thus, as you begin to examine what is outside of you, you also reveal the Upper Force, the Creator. This is called “From love for the creation, to love for the Creator.” This phrase may sound religious, but in reality it speaks of our sensory development.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to feel our neighbor and to build a common vessel of perception (Kli), called “Shechina.” This is a sense so enormous that we can perceive the Creator in it.

This is what the method of Kabbalah is about: learning to perceive and receive everything that is outside of you, without any limitations.